Mad Max: Fury Road

Saw it for the second time yesterday. The first time I saw it I was tired and distracted and I really liked it but knew I couldn't form an opinion until I saw it in a better frame of mind. Second time it just blew me away and I think it might be better than The Road Warrior. Strangely the second time I didn't love the Doof Warrior as much and while cool, he wasn't the awesome figure he was the first time I saw the movie.

I still believe the first 5 minutes suck and it would be better off starting off when the second title screen hits. One thing I didn't pick up on the first time is that Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron are given equal billing using the same method as the Towering Inferno (both names appear simultaneously with Therons to the right and raised compared to Hardy, so reading top to bottom Theron is top billed and reading left to right Hardy is top billed).

Michael Barnes wrote: People think that a "plot" has to be some kind of labyrinthine bullshit with a raft of characters, tons of locations, lots of exposition and a twist. A story that isn't fucking Lost, Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones is regarded as non-existent.

Exactly. And what you end up getting is shit like the Matt Smith seasons of Doctor Who, where all this crap is flying around, all these references and characters and "wheels within wheels" and stuff and people praise it for being so complex and intelligent but it makes no fucking sense. There's no way to make it into a story because it's not coherent, just convoluted for its own sake.

You know, it's funny because X-Files figures into all of this too, this sort of drive toward complication. The much-maligned "monster of the week" episodes were criticized for not driving the boring and really-not-that-smart "mythology" meta-story forward...yet they were almost uniformly the stronger and more memorable episodes. Because they had self-contained plots that kept things simple and with a beginning, middle and end all with 45 minutes or so. They didn't try to confuse the viewer into thinking that it was "smart" through a bunch of cryptic references and obscured information.

It's like I always say- if you can make an audience feel clever, you're on the home stretch to being a millionaire. And these kinds of convoluted, sloppy plots that require a couple of brain cells to complete a story by drawing together all of this bullshit make people feel clever. Shows like Lost made people feel smart for liking them and for having the mental fortitude to "get" it.

So when something really raw and rootsy like Fury Road comes along..."wah, there's no plot, they just drive in the desert and turn around to go back". It must "dumb", "mindless action" or what have you.

Sad that people think like that.

Even worse- I really, really wish that I had not read a forum post elsewhere that said (paraphrasing) Fury Road was pretty good, but it was a copycat borrowing too much from Borderlands and Fallout.

I loved Fury Road and have no complaints about the plot, but there is something to be said about an engaging mystery and mythology.

It's not the convoluted plot of Lost that made it special, it's the mystery of the Island and wanting to know what's around the next corner, what the hell is that cloud of smoke, and why the hell are there Polar bears here. The hatch and the timer were the culmination of Lost for me and answering many of the mysteries with 70's hippies and time travel killed it.

At the same time the mythology of Fury Road is definitely there, not in a dissimilar way to Lost's early hints of backstory. Not knowing everything and not having it spoonfed was part of what made this film special, and it's also what made Lost seasons 1 and 2 so damn great.

GABBO is coming...

Talked to a guy at my gym about Mad Max movies. He loved Fury Road, but was very disappointed when he watched "the prequel." I asked him if he was talking about the original Mad Max from back in 1979, or The Road Warrior. (I am reluctant to bring up Thunderdome in casual conversation, because I start ranting about the damn kids.) He wasn't sure, because he gave up on the old movie after just five minutes because nothing was happening. That's tragic. He couldn't wait more than five minutes for the action to start. I often swear that modern tech is killing attention spans, turning us all into twitchy multi-taskers, but this is extreme. Five minutes. SMH.

(not my pic, found online)

Funny stuff! Too bad it probably lasted about 30 seconds knowing how Home Depot is...

You may also enjoy the questions and reviews found here. Wilton Silver Color Mist

(My wife decorates cakes, so I probably already have some in a cupboard. Witness me!)

Shellhead wrote: Talked to a guy at my gym about Mad Max movies. He loved Fury Road, but was very disappointed when he watched "the prequel." I asked him if he was talking about the original Mad Max from back in 1979, or The Road Warrior. (I am reluctant to bring up Thunderdome in casual conversation, because I start ranting about the damn kids.) He wasn't sure, because he gave up on the old movie after just five minutes because nothing was happening. That's tragic. He couldn't wait more than five minutes for the action to start. I often swear that modern tech is killing attention spans, turning us all into twitchy multi-taskers, but this is extreme. Five minutes. SMH.

Can't have been Mad Max, that movie's first ten minutes are spectacular. Probably Thunderdome, that one does start slowly.

Anyway, who cares, he's totally wrong.

It's blasphemy, but I am not overly fond of the first movie myself. I think it's a bit slow and boring.

Gary Sax wrote: It's blasphemy, but I am not overly fond of the first movie myself. I think it's a bit slow and boring.

I'm so glad someone else feels this way too. I love Road Warrior and most of Thunderdome. I wouldn't care if I never see the first movie again.

My entry point to Mad Max was The Road Warrior, which I saw in the theater around the time I was learning to drive. It remains one of my all-time favorite movies. My first car was a cheap Chevy Nova with a surprisingly powerful engine and severe body rust. My grandfather showed me how to rivet some tin panels on the sides to cover the big rust holes, which also made my car look vaguely like a vehicle straight outta The Road Warrior.

It wasn't until sometime in college that I got to see Mad Max, and it was disappointing. For a long time, I said the same things that I'm seeing on this page of the thread, that it was slow and boring. And yet when I finally saw Mad Max again last year, I was actually impressed. Yeah, the pacing is somewhat slower, but the stunts are impressively dangerous and unprofessional in execution, especially when those guys pole-vaulted onto a moving tanker.

What Mad Max does really well is build up tension. It is more of a horror movie than an action movie, and should be appreciated on that level. The villains are genuinely creepy and disturbing and yet somewhat fun. Toecutter in particular carries himself with an odd dignity and twisted charisma. And I loved it when Max's wife sticks the ice cream cone in his face. I couldn't watch it right after Fury Road, because that movie trumps all, but the original Mad Max has its merits, and remains a better movie than the more quoted Thunderdome.

My first Mad Max movie was Fury Road. I watched both Mad Max 1 and 2 a few days afterward. I must admit that they didn't really do much for me. It's probably a mixture of just seeing Fury Road and also never seeing them when I was younger. I'm pretty sure it's similar to how I think Star Wars is boring and dumb but I really enjoy Star Trek (post-TOS). I never saw the former as a kid but watched a lot of Star Trek.

I should see Mad Max again to give it another chance, given my overwhelming love for 2.